Early Male Friendship as a Precursor to Substance Abuse in Girls http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/ Science Daily (Mar. 11, 2011)
This is a very interesting article relating to adolescent girls who become friends with males at an early age. Researchers studied 400 adolescents (58% females) and found the girls who befriended the boys were more likely to develop substance abuse problems during late adolescence. In our classroom text, Adolescence, (Santrock), peer relationships are deliniated from pages 319-321. There is supportive research from this link that correlates the concept of peers and the influence peer groups have on adolescent development. According to Dr. Francois Poulin, "peer relationships are considered to be one of the main risk factors for substance use." The study aslo found that anti-scocial behavior and early pubertal maturation acelerated in the proportion of other-sex friends.
(John B.)
"Can't Buy Me Love" (1987)
"Can't Buy Me Love" (1987) is one of those great 80's movies with a twist on the old "rags to riches" idea. Ronald, your stereotypical nerd desires nothing more than to spend his senior year being popular. When he happens upon the most popular girl in school in a financial predicament, he bails her out using the money he had been saving for a new telescope. In exchange she agrees to "go out" with him for several weeks, which he hopes will help him gain the popularity he seeks. In doing so, she provides him with some coaching, so he won't be so socially repulsive to her friends. This could loosely be associated with the conglomerate strategies Santrock introduces on page 319. A variety of strategies are offered, often in the form of coaching, lectures, and modeling. Through this entire process, Ronald achieves the popularity he desires, at least for a little while. (Jason)
The friendship between the human James T. Kirk and the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock is an established part of our pop culture. Even if you've never watched an episode of Star Trek in your life, you've probably heard of these two and recognize their names. At first, the two seem to have nothing in common. Spock is very calm and logical, while Kirk can sometimes let his emotions get the better of him. But I would say that this actually helps the two of them. Each of them provides a different perspective, and sometimes one of them can change the other's mind. Although they sometimes differ on strategy, they work together and make a good team.
The recent movie, Star Trek, shows how the two of them could have become friends. It also seems to imply that fate itself brought the two of them together. (It's a little contrived how the young Kirk just happens to arrive on the same planet as the elderly Spock.) The friendship between Kirk and Spock has endured for decades, and I think Star Trek will be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in a couple of years. I think that it's the relationship between these two characters that has allowed the show to stay around for so long. (Zak)
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
The movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsfollows the story of four female friends, Tibby, Lena, Bridget, and Carmen, who have extremely close relationships with each other and have varying levels of the six categories of friendship which Santrock points out in chapter 9 (p.321). The four girls have always been there for each other through hardships like the death and divorce of parents, and the summer they spend apart from each other is no different. Although the four girls are spending their summer months all across the world, they keep in touch through letters and the exchange of a magical pair of pants. Although they don’t spend as much time together, the girls are able to express their love and support for each other and keep fostering their companionship, stimulation, physical support, ego support, social comparison, and intimacy/affection friendships through the course of this film, demonstrating just how strong and resistant true friendship can be.(Caitlin)
The Perks of Being a Wall Flower
The Perks of Being a Wall Flower introduces the reader to a young teenage boy who goes by the name of Charlie. At the beginning of the novel Charlie is a neglected adolescent. His best friend committed suicide in middle school and he is over looked by others. He shy and introverted and had difficulty approaching new people. He meets Patrick and his sister Sam. They soon befriend him and he joins their clique. This group is involved with going to Rocky Horror Picture showings in costume. As the novel progresses Charlie gains the confidence and by conclusion is no longer a "wallflower." This is a video shows an except from the book put to the music of The Smiths, a band which Charlie listens too throughout the book. (Emily Grace)
ADOLESCENT GROUPS
Boys and Girls Club of America http://www.bgca.org/Pages/index.aspx
The Boys and Girls Club of America is an example of a youth organization made available to adolescents in the majority of towns and cities in the United States. Teens that attend Boys and Girls Clubs participate in education, career, character, and leadership programs. They also learn health, life, and fitness skills. Teens can also participate in sports recreation and other specialized programs. The Boys and Girls Club of Amercia is a great way for students to make relational connections with one another and learn appropriate group interactions (p. 327). It also encourages adolescents to make responsible decisions in terms of homework and academic goals. Many of my students participate in the Boys and Girls Club in Goshen and have been very successful with earning scholarships for college and pulling themselve out of difficult life situations. (Mary)
The movie/ musical Grease is set in a high school in the 1950's. It deals largely with many of the ideas covered by the text regarding adolescent groups is a over the top parodied way. There are several identifiable cliques (or groups of around 5 or 6 individuals) (Santrock sel 11464). There are two "greaser" cliques -- The Burger Palace Boys and the T-Birds. There also is a group of rebellious group of girls called the Pink Ladies. There also are unnamed groups of teens such as the nerds and the jocks. The plot of the story revolves around the romance of a seemingly preppy girl and one of the greasers. They had a summer romance that creates a lot of identity issues within the cliques when Danny and Sandra try to figure out their relationship in relation to their peers judgements and established cliques. (Joel)
American Teen
American Teen is a documentary filmed in Warsaw Indiana. It follows the experiences of 5 seniors in high school from various cliques. The film reveals a year in their lives and shows the heartbreak, hilarity, and drama of senior year from very different viewpoints. Santrock talks about how “cliques are formed with adolescents engaging in similar activities or have spent time together and enjoy each other’s company.” (326) American teen follows teens that represent the cliques of; jock, rebel, nerd and popular. Two of the teens are considered to be popular one being the princess and the other the heartthrob. The film lets the viewers see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks and the struggle to make decisions about the future. (Melanie)
(from ScienceDaily.com) I thought that this story was a perfect storm with us coming back from Spring Break and knowing that many of our schools we are employed at are about to go on Spring Break. This study looked at the difference in peer relationships for teens during times of risky behaviors. It illustrates that peer relationships with a defined expectation of keeping an eye on each other lead to less risky behaviors. The gender issue comes into play with the results that female peer relationships are more likely to follow through with understanding to promote/support each other towards safer behaviors. Conversely, male peer relationships were more understanding to promote/support toward drinking and riskier sexual behavior. (BradH)
(Malinda Mansfield) The text spoke about the differences between the relationships of female adolescents versus male adolescents. "Boys make themselves vulnerable to being called "wimps" if they can't handle their own problems and insecurities. These gender differences are generally assumed to reflect a greater orientation toward interpersonal relationships among girls than boys" ( 337). This weekend, my daughter and I were watching "The Fairly Odd Parents". This episode in particular was right on target. Timmy a middle school student, who is the main character, gets invited to Trixie's (a very popular girl in his class) party but he doesn't know what to give her as a gift. Cosmo (Timmy's Godfather) suggested that he must be a girl in order to think like a girl. This made Cosmo and Timmy laugh and mocked what it was like being a girl. Wanda (Timmy's Godmother) then purposely turned him into a girl to teach him that girls weren't as bad as he thought. He fought back by wishing the same to them.Cosmo turned into a woman and Wanda turned into a man. He went to the mall to figure what girls like and what gift to give for Trixie. While Timmy is a girl, he befriends Trixie, but only to be humiliated in front of her friends, because it was more important that she looked good in front of her friends. "The Boy Who Became Queen"- Fairly Odd Parents
__http://www.teachhub.com/news/article/cat/14/item/28__
Single Sex Education: A Return to Segregation?
While gender segregation today is frequently restrained, it is turning into a part of school policy in some places. In other countries it is generally prohibited for girls and boys to go to school together. (p. 330) Although it is not stated in most schools in America, schools do practice segregation with students. When students are out for break or recess girls gather on the playground around swings, while boys will get in groups to play tag or some game. Teachers also segregate students by having girls line up in separate lines from boys. Parents segregate their adolescents by insisting that their sons play the drums and girls will play a clarinet.Not until recently were girls allowed the opportunity to participate in football. Girls roles were to be the cheerleaders. Boys have since become a part of the cheerleaders squad but not as cheeleaders, but as lifters. Parents are now being asked to take a look at and consider single sex education. The reasoning behind implementing single sex education is because boys and girls actually think differently. But what happens with segregation? We have learned from history that separate can never be equal. America’s classrooms by now are uneven by race, class and ethnic group. (P. 330) Miranda
According to the textbook Adolescence by John Santrock, affectionate love is a love occurring when an individual desires to have another person near and has a deep, caring affection for that person (p. 335). In the film Sweet Home Alabama, the main character Melanie must return home to her roots and secure a signature for her divorce from her childhood sweetheart in order to marry a very prestigious man, the son of a New York politician. As she spends more time in her hometwon, with her parents and former childhood friends, she begins reflecting on her own childhood love which led to a marriage she considered a mistake. Being surrounded in her childhood envirnoment stirs up old emotions of genuine love that she once had for her husband Jake. From the moment Jake and Melanie were children, they shared a deepand meaningful friendship that led to an even stronger bond through their teenage years. This film displays the concepts of how the early stages of a romantic relationship are revisited, affecting an adult woman's ability to find her true love; a love that was shaped and influenced based on thier childhood upbringing as well as the influence and love of their parents as mentioned by Santrock (p. 335). The concept of affectionate love supports the idea that the love shared between Melanie and Jake as adolscents was so deep and characteristic of adult love that eventually Melanie finds her way back to her true love. (KERRY)
Oak Park Student Suspended Over List Of Girls
Oak Park Student
Dating seems to be a very big thing for every teenager. In the chapter, it talks about how physical attractiveness and sexuality play a big role in relationships (p 335). A study shows that attractiveness is one of the elements of dating for teeenagers. Regarding to the chaper, I found an article that talked about a student was suspended from school for ranking attractiveness of girls on Facebook. Other students also put some comments about the girls on his Facebook. A lot of girls in the school got offended by this. Even though, appearaces seem to be important in dating, not every person thinks the same way and it can be insulting to people when they are criticized about their looks in public. (Gik)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710193711.htm Learning To Talk To Teens About Sex—While At Work I felt that this article goes hand-in-hand with teens and dating because, let’s face it, when a teen starts to date; sex becomes a very real possibility. I don’t have kids but I would be very uncomfortable with approaching my dating-age teen and talking to them about sex. This article talks about an 8 week program for parents that teaches them to actively listen to their children without lecturing. It also teaches techniques for starting and having conversations with their teens about sex and dating. The parents were also taught how to teach their children decision making skills when it comes to daily interaction with their peers. This program helped parents be more involved with their teen and the teens felt more comfortable opening up to their parents. I felt that this is very important because dating interaction becomes prevalent as young as 11 years of age (section 11635-11694) and there are eight different reasons for why teens date. Dating used to be a courtship for marriage but can now be only because a teen wants to experiment which means they need to be prepared for the dangers of dating. Parents should be as involved as possible when their teens start to date. (LeAnn) Children’s Hospital Boston (2008, July 10). Learning To Talk To Teens About Sex—While At Work. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 20, 2001, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710193711.htm
10 Things I Hate About You
The ultimate teen dating movie (in my opinion) has to be 10 Things I Hate About You. Adapted from William Shakespeare's play "The Taming of the Shrew," 10 Things I Hate About You starts with Cameron, new student at Padua High, sitting in the office of the quirky guidance counselor Ms. Perky. He is then given a tour around the school by Michael, who soon becomes his best friend. During his tour, Cameron first sees Bianca Stratford, a beautiful sophomore with one problem: she isn't allowed to date. Neither is her "shrew" sister, Katarina, a senior who loves indie rock, feminist prose, and hates conformity. Kat and Bianca's father changes his house rule: Bianca can date... as long as Kat has a date, too. Now, in order for Cameron to date Bianca, he has to find someone to date Kat. Michael helps him enlist the help of pretty-boy/jerk/model Joey Donner, tricking him into thinking that he will get to take Bianca out if he pays someone to take out Kat. Joey's choice: Patrick Verona, a bad-boy with a mysterious reputation. This movie deals with the emotional aspects of dating/romantic relationships (pg. 333). In the movie, Bianca really wants to date this older boy, because she believes that he "loves" her and she really likes him, but really the boy wants to take things to the next level (sex) and Bianca just is not ready. Dating can be an emotional roller coaster and in the movie, Bianca is crushed when she finds out that the boy she likes has victimized her sister, Kat as well. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0147800/plotsummary (Katie)
PEERS AND FRIENDS
Early Male Friendship as a Precursor to Substance Abuse in Girlshttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/
Science Daily (Mar. 11, 2011)
This is a very interesting article relating to adolescent girls who become friends with males at an early age. Researchers studied 400 adolescents (58% females) and found the girls who befriended the boys were more likely to develop substance abuse problems during late adolescence. In our classroom text, Adolescence, (Santrock), peer relationships are deliniated from pages 319-321. There is supportive research from this link that correlates the concept of peers and the influence peer groups have on adolescent development. According to Dr. Francois Poulin, "peer relationships are considered to be one of the main risk factors for substance use." The study aslo found that anti-scocial behavior and early pubertal maturation acelerated in the proportion of other-sex friends.
(John B.)
"Can't Buy Me Love" (1987)
"Can't Buy Me Love" (1987) is one of those great 80's movies with a twist on the old "rags to riches" idea. Ronald, your stereotypical nerd desires nothing more than to spend his senior year being popular. When he happens upon the most popular girl in school in a financial predicament, he bails her out using the money he had been saving for a new telescope. In exchange she agrees to "go out" with him for several weeks, which he hopes will help him gain the popularity he seeks. In doing so, she provides him with some coaching, so he won't be so socially repulsive to her friends. This could loosely be associated with the conglomerate strategies Santrock introduces on page 319. A variety of strategies are offered, often in the form of coaching, lectures, and modeling. Through this entire process, Ronald achieves the popularity he desires, at least for a little while. (Jason)
The friendship between the human James T. Kirk and the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock is an established part of our pop culture. Even if you've never watched an episode of Star Trek in your life, you've probably heard of these two and recognize their names. At first, the two seem to have nothing in common. Spock is very calm and logical, while Kirk can sometimes let his emotions get the better of him. But I would say that this actually helps the two of them. Each of them provides a different perspective, and sometimes one of them can change the other's mind. Although they sometimes differ on strategy, they work together and make a good team.
The recent movie, Star Trek, shows how the two of them could have become friends. It also seems to imply that fate itself brought the two of them together. (It's a little contrived how the young Kirk just happens to arrive on the same planet as the elderly Spock.) The friendship between Kirk and Spock has endured for decades, and I think Star Trek will be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in a couple of years. I think that it's the relationship between these two characters that has allowed the show to stay around for so long. (Zak)
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
The movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants follows the story of four female friends, Tibby, Lena, Bridget, and Carmen, who have extremely close relationships with each other and have varying levels of the six categories of friendship which Santrock points out in chapter 9 (p.321). The four girls have always been there for each other through hardships like the death and divorce of parents, and the summer they spend apart from each other is no different. Although the four girls are spending their summer months all across the world, they keep in touch through letters and the exchange of a magical pair of pants. Although they don’t spend as much time together, the girls are able to express their love and support for each other and keep fostering their companionship, stimulation, physical support, ego support, social comparison, and intimacy/affection friendships through the course of this film, demonstrating just how strong and resistant true friendship can be.(Caitlin)
The Perks of Being a Wall Flower
The Perks of Being a Wall Flower introduces the reader to a young teenage boy who goes by the name of Charlie. At the beginning of the novel Charlie is a neglected adolescent. His best friend committed suicide in middle school and he is over looked by others. He shy and introverted and had difficulty approaching new people. He meets Patrick and his sister Sam. They soon befriend him and he joins their clique. This group is involved with going to Rocky Horror Picture showings in costume. As the novel progresses Charlie gains the confidence and by conclusion is no longer a "wallflower." This is a video shows an except from the book put to the music of The Smiths, a band which Charlie listens too throughout the book. (Emily Grace)ADOLESCENT GROUPS
Boys and Girls Club of America
http://www.bgca.org/Pages/index.aspx
The Boys and Girls Club of America is an example of a youth organization made available to adolescents in the majority of towns and cities in the United States. Teens that attend Boys and Girls Clubs participate in education, career, character, and leadership programs. They also learn health, life, and fitness skills. Teens can also participate in sports recreation and other specialized programs. The Boys and Girls Club of Amercia is a great way for students to make relational connections with one another and learn appropriate group interactions (p. 327). It also encourages adolescents to make responsible decisions in terms of homework and academic goals. Many of my students participate in the Boys and Girls Club in Goshen and have been very successful with earning scholarships for college and pulling themselve out of difficult life situations. (Mary)
Grease
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_(musical)
The movie/ musical Grease is set in a high school in the 1950's. It deals largely with many of the ideas covered by the text regarding adolescent groups is a over the top parodied way. There are several identifiable cliques (or groups of around 5 or 6 individuals) (Santrock sel 11464). There are two "greaser" cliques -- The Burger Palace Boys and the T-Birds. There also is a group of rebellious group of girls called the Pink Ladies. There also are unnamed groups of teens such as the nerds and the jocks. The plot of the story revolves around the romance of a seemingly preppy girl and one of the greasers. They had a summer romance that creates a lot of identity issues within the cliques when Danny and Sandra try to figure out their relationship in relation to their peers judgements and established cliques. (Joel)
American Teen
American Teen is a documentary filmed in Warsaw Indiana. It follows the experiences of 5 seniors in high school from various cliques. The film reveals a year in their lives and shows the heartbreak, hilarity, and drama of senior year from very different viewpoints. Santrock talks about how “cliques are formed with adolescents engaging in similar activities or have spent time together and enjoy each other’s company.” (326) American teen follows teens that represent the cliques of; jock, rebel, nerd and popular. Two of the teens are considered to be popular one being the princess and the other the heartthrob. The film lets the viewers see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks and the struggle to make decisions about the future. (Melanie)
GENDER AND CULTURE
Spring Break: College Students and Risky Behaviors
(from ScienceDaily.com) I thought that this story was a perfect storm with us coming back from Spring Break and knowing that many of our schools we are employed at are about to go on Spring Break. This study looked at the difference in peer relationships for teens during times of risky behaviors. It illustrates that peer relationships with a defined expectation of keeping an eye on each other lead to less risky behaviors. The gender issue comes into play with the results that female peer relationships are more likely to follow through with understanding to promote/support each other towards safer behaviors. Conversely, male peer relationships were more understanding to promote/support toward drinking and riskier sexual behavior. (BradH)
(Malinda Mansfield) The text spoke about the differences between the relationships of female adolescents versus male adolescents. "Boys make themselves vulnerable to being called "wimps" if they can't handle their own problems and insecurities. These gender differences are generally assumed to reflect a greater orientation toward interpersonal relationships among girls than boys" ( 337). This weekend, my daughter and I were watching "The Fairly Odd Parents". This episode in particular was right on target. Timmy a middle school student, who is the main character, gets invited to Trixie's (a very popular girl in his class) party but he doesn't know what to give her as a gift. Cosmo (Timmy's Godfather) suggested that he must be a girl in order to think like a girl. This made Cosmo and Timmy laugh and mocked what it was like being a girl. Wanda (Timmy's Godmother) then purposely turned him into a girl to teach him that girls weren't as bad as he thought. He fought back by wishing the same to them.Cosmo turned into a woman and Wanda turned into a man. He went to the mall to figure what girls like and what gift to give for Trixie. While Timmy is a girl, he befriends Trixie, but only to be humiliated in front of her friends, because it was more important that she looked good in front of her friends. "The Boy Who Became Queen"- Fairly Odd Parents
__http://www.teachhub.com/news/article/cat/14/item/28__
Single Sex Education: A Return to Segregation?
While gender segregation today is frequently restrained, it is turning into a part of school policy in some places. In other countries it is generally prohibited for girls and boys to go to school together. (p. 330) Although it is not stated in most schools in America, schools do practice segregation with students. When students are out for break or recess girls gather on the playground around swings, while boys will get in groups to play tag or some game. Teachers also segregate students by having girls line up in separate lines from boys. Parents segregate their adolescents by insisting that their sons play the drums and girls will play a clarinet.Not until recently were girls allowed the opportunity to participate in football. Girls roles were to be the cheerleaders. Boys have since become a part of the cheerleaders squad but not as cheeleaders, but as lifters. Parents are now being asked to take a look at and consider single sex education. The reasoning behind implementing single sex education is because boys and girls actually think differently. But what happens with segregation? We have learned from history that separate can never be equal. America’s classrooms by now are uneven by race, class and ethnic group. (P. 330) Miranda
DATING AND ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS
Romantic Love and Its Construction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA14VJJ_j8I&NR=1
According to the textbook Adolescence by John Santrock, affectionate love is a love occurring when an individual desires to have another person near and has a deep, caring affection for that person (p. 335). In the film Sweet Home Alabama, the main character Melanie must return home to her roots and secure a signature for her divorce from her childhood sweetheart in order to marry a very prestigious man, the son of a New York politician. As she spends more time in her hometwon, with her parents and former childhood friends, she begins reflecting on her own childhood love which led to a marriage she considered a mistake. Being surrounded in her childhood envirnoment stirs up old emotions of genuine love that she once had for her husband Jake. From the moment Jake and Melanie were children, they shared a deepand meaningful friendship that led to an even stronger bond through their teenage years. This film displays the concepts of how the early stages of a romantic relationship are revisited, affecting an adult woman's ability to find her true love; a love that was shaped and influenced based on thier childhood upbringing as well as the influence and love of their parents as mentioned by Santrock (p. 335). The concept of affectionate love supports the idea that the love shared between Melanie and Jake as adolscents was so deep and characteristic of adult love that eventually Melanie finds her way back to her true love. (KERRY)
Oak Park Student Suspended Over List Of Girls
Oak Park StudentDating seems to be a very big thing for every teenager. In the chapter, it talks about how physical attractiveness and sexuality play a big role in relationships (p 335). A study shows that attractiveness is one of the elements of dating for teeenagers. Regarding to the chaper, I found an article that talked about a student was suspended from school for ranking attractiveness of girls on Facebook. Other students also put some comments about the girls on his Facebook. A lot of girls in the school got offended by this. Even though, appearaces seem to be important in dating, not every person thinks the same way and it can be insulting to people when they are criticized about their looks in public. (Gik)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710193711.htm
Learning To Talk To Teens About Sex—While At Work
I felt that this article goes hand-in-hand with teens and dating because, let’s face it, when a teen starts to date; sex becomes a very real possibility. I don’t have kids but I would be very uncomfortable with approaching my dating-age teen and talking to them about sex. This article talks about an 8 week program for parents that teaches them to actively listen to their children without lecturing. It also teaches techniques for starting and having conversations with their teens about sex and dating. The parents were also taught how to teach their children decision making skills when it comes to daily interaction with their peers. This program helped parents be more involved with their teen and the teens felt more comfortable opening up to their parents. I felt that this is very important because dating interaction becomes prevalent as young as 11 years of age (section 11635-11694) and there are eight different reasons for why teens date. Dating used to be a courtship for marriage but can now be only because a teen wants to experiment which means they need to be prepared for the dangers of dating. Parents should be as involved as possible when their teens start to date. (LeAnn)
Children’s Hospital Boston (2008, July 10). Learning To Talk To Teens About Sex—While At Work. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 20, 2001, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080710193711.htm
The ultimate teen dating movie (in my opinion) has to be 10 Things I Hate About You. Adapted from William Shakespeare's play "The Taming of the Shrew," 10 Things I Hate About You starts with Cameron, new student at Padua High, sitting in the office of the quirky guidance counselor Ms. Perky. He is then given a tour around the school by Michael, who soon becomes his best friend. During his tour, Cameron first sees Bianca Stratford, a beautiful sophomore with one problem: she isn't allowed to date. Neither is her "shrew" sister, Katarina, a senior who loves indie rock, feminist prose, and hates conformity. Kat and Bianca's father changes his house rule: Bianca can date... as long as Kat has a date, too. Now, in order for Cameron to date Bianca, he has to find someone to date Kat. Michael helps him enlist the help of pretty-boy/jerk/model Joey Donner, tricking him into thinking that he will get to take Bianca out if he pays someone to take out Kat. Joey's choice: Patrick Verona, a bad-boy with a mysterious reputation. This movie deals with the emotional aspects of dating/romantic relationships (pg. 333). In the movie, Bianca really wants to date this older boy, because she believes that he "loves" her and she really likes him, but really the boy wants to take things to the next level (sex) and Bianca just is not ready. Dating can be an emotional roller coaster and in the movie, Bianca is crushed when she finds out that the boy she likes has victimized her sister, Kat as well. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0147800/plotsummary (Katie)